Tag Archives: Boris Starosta

Clear Buildings

by Boris Starosta

I apologize for more architectural views, the second time in a row. These images have not gone around in a folio in over ten years, and I don’t think ever in this folio. Although some of you have seen them before, others might appreciate the views as something new. Also, sorry about the relatively poor sharpness, a limitation of the technology available to me at the time I made these images, almost twenty years ago now.

In the mid aughts I discovered the amazing photography of Michael Wesely, who was then making waves with his experiments in long-exposure photography.  Long exposure times measured not in minutes or even hours, but in years.  His book “Open Shutter” reviews images of architectural landmarks all over the world, where exposure times of up to two years were used to capture the visual abstraction and semi-transparency of architectural transformation.  I was much inspired by this, but I had to know: did Wesely do any of his work in 3D?  Because the images of his that I had seen were supremely suitable for stereoscopic capture, showing as they did incredible complexity, depth, and semi-transparency in structures that were being built or even being torn down.  I had a brief correspondence with Wesely soon after, and his answer was straightforward: he had not shot anything in 3D.

This gave me the green light, as it were.  I am motivated in no small part by applying stereo photography to subjects and or techniques that remain relatively unexplored.  However, in the case of Wesely’s long exposures, I was utterly out of my depth.  I did understand he had used cameras with lenses (i.e. not pinholes) that were heavily filtered.  But I had no way to know how heavy the filtering was, the effect of reciprocity failure in the photosensitive emulsions that he used, and/or how he compensated for those factors.  I knew from the start that at best I would be able to merely simulate his technique using digital photography: capturing images at a given location multiple times over the course of many months (or indeed years), but taking extreme care to position and align the cameras exactly the same way for each image capture, then combining the resulting captures digitally.

Alas, the cameras I was using had “only” 20 megapixels (Canon D60 DSLRs) sensors, with subsequent post-processing and ultimately printing onto film causing further losses in resolution and sharpness. Sorry about that; I know you’re used to much better sharpness in MF3d! I hope the interesting technique and subject matter is an adequate offset to the arguably poor image quality. These film prints were done at a service bureau with a so-called film writer. Nowadays I could probably get better results using my Pentacon MF camera to shoot the images onto film as displayed on a 5K computer screen, but it would take a lot of film and processing to iterate to satisfactory exposure and screen settings.

The biggest building I photographed using this technique of multiple exposures is Ruffin Hall, a new building for the Fine Arts program at UVA.  Over the course of 2007 to 2008 I staked out six different points around the building, from which I captured images.  Of those six, one was lost along the way due to a tractor trailer being placed right in front of my location, blocking the view of the site – but only after several months of construction (and image capture) had already commenced.  Of the remaining five viewpoints, three resulted in quite interesting views, but the one I’m showing in this round is by far the best, because this viewpoint was the closest to the action, obtained from the roof of the neighboring Fine Arts Library.

This image is a simple blend of six exposures taken over the course of some 18 months, with each exposure getting about equal representation in the final mix. This came close to the effect that Wesely had achieved with his ultra-long exposures. But I also discovered that the digital method opened up some creative opportunities that were closed off to Wesely and his wet-process emulsion-based long exposures. I could change the mix, change the transparency of the various images to achieve completely different results.

For example, in this second image of Ruffin Hall, I blended the images to show a progression of time, starting on the left side showing the earlier exposures, smoothly blending to the right side, where the building is shown finished. In-between, in the middle, is that delectable semi-transparent structural complexity that can be appreciated best only in 3D. By a pure lucky coincidence, some men in the middle of the image are conversing, but one pair of the men were photographed at a completely different time than the second pair of men. It looks almost like they are all conversing together in a time warp!

In the many views obtained of this and other buildings in those years, final composition was a matter of luck and some imagination.  Depending on the site and building, I might have had a chance to look at some plans or an architect’s model, and from these inputs, I had to decide on where to place and how to point the cameras.  Two more buildings came out quite well.

Like the Ruffin Hall image above, for a new Nursing School building I blended the various images so that a progression can be seen progressing diagonally from the earliest imagery in the lower left, to the upper right side, showing the finished exterior.

The ARCH bldg. is an addition to UVA’s School of Architecture, and you can see for this version I did a simple blend to make it look like a Wesely-style long exposure.

CVLE Bike Fest

by Boris Starosta

A couple years ago, we had a new bike race organized in my home town of Charlottesville. I like this subject matter for the challenge of capturing the essence of the sport, though it is also a bittersweet experience to stand on the sidelines with a camera, as I have several decades of bike racing experience, and I do miss participating (my last racing was ten years ago, and I’m fairly sure I finally quit for good).

I knew this shoot was going to be “low yield,” but I love these kinds of dynamic images in 3d. Few people have shot this style in MF3d, and it’s no surprise, because getting a good shot – where at least a few parts of the image are not blurred – is basically a crapshoot. Indeed, out of four rolls shot with two spuds, I got at most three or four images that meet that standard! For more backstory (and images) from this shoot, please visit my patreon page about it here.

There are several races during the day, but only two of the races have large fields of experienced riders, riding tightly packed, which is the most exciting. Thus, I shot with two Sputnik cameras, because during any given race, there’s no time to reload the camera; that gave me twelve exposures for each of those two races. Even before I started shooting, I tried a couple of different ways to aim and pan.  I discovered very quickly that trying to look down into the mirror finder was not going to work – too confusing!  I shot about half the material with my eye at the camera, looking through the “sport finder,” and the other half with the camera more or less at arms length, held out in front of me, aiming by “feel” – I felt this helped me keep the panning motion of the cameras very smooth.  I used shutter speeds of 1/10 and 1/25 second, which was about right for the camera apertures of f32 and f22.

Sputnik sport finder

(For those unfamiliar with it, here’s the “sport finder” mode in the Sputnik.  Note one hazard of using the sport finder: because you are not using the middle lens to aim, you have no feedback about whether or not the lens caps have been removed;-)

OBX pier

by Boris Starosta

A couple years ago we rented a cottage with another family for spring break in the Outer Banks, NC. This image was made one evening, about twenty minutes after sunset. Shot at the usual f32 with my sputnik, on Fuji Provia, requiring about thirty seconds of exposure. This was my goal: to blur the waves into a fog. I’d like to find another opportunity someplace to make an image like this, but with bigger waves! (taller fog)

I had brought a bunch of film, and had hoped to make more MF3d images whilst in “OBX,” but ended up with so much other family related stuff to do, that this motif was the only one that ended up on MF film.

Richmond Trestle

by Boris Starosta

I shot this in 2023 with a damaged Sputnik. On my way to the location, I was doing something with my camera bag, and it suddenly inverted, spilling out both my spud and my (brand “new”) Heidoskop onto the pavement of the parking lot. I soon discovered that the fall caused the Spud shutter to become partially inoperative – I had to close the shutter manually… it behaved like a bulb setting (actually worse, I had to push up on the cocking lever to close the shutter).

I shot this scene with the Spud, timing the exposures around 1/2 second by the “seat of my pants.” The Heidoskop had worked better, it didn’t appear to have suffered any damage; but I later discovered it had developed a large light leak, because of a broken seal in the custom roll-film back – so none of the exposures from that camera were any good.

Just goes to show: even a busted Spud can make good images!

railroad trestle and architecture

P.S.
In the interim, I’ve not had much success with fixing the Spud shutter. My efforts on that front are detailed in this Patreon post. Last year, Bob Venezia was kind enough to send me several Spud lens boards/shutters, to help me fix this thing, but alas, I’ve not yet gotten into it deeply enough to succeed with the repair.

Sloane 0205

by Boris Starosta

Sloane lights up whilst “bathing” in the tub. I think my goal was to depict some kind of debauchery – as if she’d fallen into the tub half-clothed at a party? Not sure… I do know I wanted that flimsy, translucent night-shirt on her, because it would partially float and give definition to the surface of the water. Of course I have other images out of this session showing smoke, etc., but I do also like this one of her firing up the lighter.

Shot with my twin-rig Mamiya 6, on Fuji RAP Astia film, a half second exposure to capture the lighter’s flame, and a strobe flash to capture everything else:

semi-nude woman in bathtub

Michele + Jet in Philly (Zagar A208)

by Boris Starosta

Sometime around 2017 we visited Philadelphia to take in a concert by Raffi, whose music Jet just loved to pieces. It was the furthest South that Raffi had ever travelled in his very long career of live performance for young audiences (Raffi is Canadian). Raffi is getting pretty old these days, so we jumped at the chance to go see him. Of course, a stereoscopic angle had to be included, so I undertook to find some of Isaiah Zagar’s thousands of murals. He has practically covered Philadephia with these distinctive works, which have a lot of stereoscopic interest, on account of the liberal use of bits of mirror. Learn more about Zagar’s opus here: https://www.phillymagicgardens.org/about-philadelphias-magic-gardens/about-isaiah-zagar/
Photography was done with a Sputnik shooting Velvia 50. But the weather was not as bright as I had hoped for. On the ground you can see my test exposure rig, a twin rig Sigma DP1 Merrill.

Poetry By Dead Men

by John Thurston

In “full confession” mode, I’m here to tell you I have nothing new to offer. I have not made a single image since the Before Times. That’s more than three years without loading the camera, finding the scenes, composing the image, and tripping the shutter. It is a dissatisfying mental place to be, but I just haven’t wanted to create any images.

So from this melancholic zone, I’m reaching into my box of treasures to offer you some images from those whose work has inspired me, and from whom we will be seeing no new images. I’ll try to have some new images for y’all next time around. Continue reading →

The Built Environment – Architecture and Machines

by Boris Starosta

Ages ago, I shot this view of the (then) new UVA Hospital with a Hasselblad, maybe two of them on a bar – in any case this is a cha-cha to obtain the necessary stereobase, which was probably around a foot, judging from the parallax in the image. I imagine the exposure was around 30 seconds. Extra credit for the astronomers in the group that can identify the stars in the sky:

UVA Hospital, Charlottesville, VA

My “day job” is technical illustration. My clients are engineers at the University of Virginia, mostly. One day I went to visit a lab, and discovered this gigantic machine. Impossibly complex in its construction, for all I knew it could have been a time machine. So I started calling it the “time machine,” whenever I mentioned to my engineer client, and that I’d like to come in some day to photograph it. The title of the image that I finally made says about the same thing. For real, this is a Directed Vapor Deposition machine. A big electron gun hits one material, vaporizes it, and the vapors are deposited onto another material. Believe it or not, it is not a custom made machine. You buy these things retail. Cost? about $1M:

Temporal Continuum Distortion Analyzer (Posterior Aspect)

In or around 2012, I had the opportunity to photograph inside a retired coal-fired power plant not far from where I live. This plant, in Bremo Bluff, VA, was the first “automatic” coal fired power plant built in USA. “Automatic” meant in those days that most of the valves, flaps, conveyor belts, and other machinery was centrally controlled. Which means, there was a central control room, where through the use of electrical switches, one could remotely actuate any of the hundreds of valves in the plant – as these were electrically actuated. I’m sure there was a measure of fear or distrust in the system early on, as plant operators were instead used to shouting control commands at a team of plant workers, on whom one could surely better rely to get the job done than the new-fangled electric motors.

I worked on three separate days in the plant to make photographs, using with great pleasure John Thurston’s custom TL-120-55 for the wide angle views. I am forever indebted to John for his generous loan of the camera to me that year. In this view we have my old friend Chuck Holzner up there on another level (see the white hard-hat?) taking some of his own pictures. Along the left side of the view, rising up through the various levels, is one of the four burners in the plant. These are 100 foot tall furnaces (not counting the smokestack outside the building!), that included Ash removal apparatus at the very bottom, a furnace chamber 1/3 of the way up including hundreds of pipes for heat exchange (i.e. for boiling water, making steam), and at the top a variety of filters to capture particulates in the exhaust. I’ll guess this was a three seconds exposure:

Bremo B 418 Main Room

Elsewhere in the plant, I captured this view of just a tiny fraction of the pipes and plumbing that, along with grated floors and vast spaces, characterized the place. Probably a thirty seconds exposure in this dark spot:

Bremo C 515 “Pipefitter’s Nightmare”

I’ll close with an image obtained in or around 2014 at the United States Botanical Garden in Washington, DC, where I fell in love with the “Jungle” greenhouse that is central to the place. In this three-stories tall greenhouse, one can commune with a variety of lush tropical plants, even in the deep of winter, and witness the slow motion battle between the built environment and the imprisoned flora. This picture was taken with a Sputnik, a good bit after sunset – I like the interplay of just a little natural light in the background, with artificial lights in the foreground. I imagine about a ten or twenty second exposure.

USBG-1302

Two views from the “No Spectators” show at the Renwick Gallery

by Boris Starosta

In 2018 we traveled to visit the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. Descriptions below in part taken from online sources:

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man brought the large-scale, participatory work from this desert gathering to the nation’s capital for the first time. The exhibition took over the entire Renwick Gallery building and surrounding Golden Triangle neighborhood, bringing alive the maker culture and creative spirit of this cultural movement.

FoldHaus Art Collective’s Shrumen Lumen: The elements of this sophisticated, interactive cluster of fungi each has its own particular character responding to human interaction. As participants step on the footpads located beneath each cap, the mushrooms gently grow and “breathe.zzzzz’ In daylight the grouping appears ethereal white, while at night, it magically transforms with embedded LEDs that glow through the translucent outer skin to bring the installation to life.

Truth is Beauty by Marco Cochrane. Cochrane first sculpts his pieces by hand before constructing them from steel triangles at grand proportions. Built using a mold of the original clay sculpture, the version of Truth Is Beauty in the gallery is one-third the size of the fifty-five-foot tall figure that appeared at Burning Man in 2013.

Both images acquired with my Sputnik, about 30s exposure f22 I guess, on 100ASA Fuji RDPIII film.

Cedarcrest Inn Spirit Succubus

by Boris Starosta

In spring of 2012 we had a holiday in Asheville, North Carolina, for cycling on the road and in the mountains.  It was beautiful.  Though warned about the ghost, we elected to stay at the historic Cedarcrest Inn, where we got the Romeo Suite.  Of course we tried to capture an image of the ghost, meeting with limited success using some long exposures in available light (thirty seconds!).  Shot with Sputnik.